Nudity, Art and War

Kinmen, pronounced Jinmen and also known as Quemoy, is a small island off the coast of the Chinese province of Fujian that only makes the international press for its past as a frontline battle zone in the war between communist China and pro-Western Taiwan.
There are no naturist beaches, just like the rest of Taiwan, since public nudity is strictly forbidden, no matter the reason.
So when local filmmaker Tung Chen-liang went to show his documentary about the past wars on Kinmen to a government organization known as the Control Yuan, noone was expecting nudity.
But that was exactly what they got. In addition to pictures of the battle zone, and old martial propaganda songs from both sides - the songs in praise of Mao Zedong would never have been allowed in Taiwan until recently - just a couple of minutes into the movie, a completely naked young woman appeared, walking through a military graveyard, looking around, touching the graves. Taiwanese media reported there was full frontal nudity, though in good Taiwanese tradition, the TV stations covered the dangerous bits with a "mosaic" of pixillation. The picture that made the press was the one showing the woman lying naked next to the grave of a soldier.
Public reaction in Taiwan was mostly negative to neutral, with the director defending his choice of a naked woman as an attempt to the console the spirits of the war dead.
Regardless of this segment's real artistic value, the documentary, which is hardly likely to make it to Taiwanese TV in its present form, is the latest example of how nudity and art coexist in a difficult way in most Asian countries.